Picture ... It's hazy. See for yourself
"Malema later tweeted: ‘Hahaha, you
are going, white man. I’ve got no sympathy for whiteness, it feels so good for
a black child to determine the future of the white one.
Because the mayor of DA in PE* is a white
man. So, these people, when you want to hit them hard – go after a white man. They
feel a terrible pain, because you have touched a white man … but we are
starting with this whiteness.' "[i]
*Should be Nelson Mandela Bay?
What the Bay left with? A “mayor with a
dubious reputation” supported – perhaps, perhaps not – by two minority parties who
don’t usually see eye to eye. Considering the recent past throughout South
Africa (SA) for those less able to fend for themselves, NMB will possibly begin
the plunge to join with “92% of municipalities (that) are in financial trouble”
– AG, June 2016.[ii]
No Racism In Facts
Jump to May this year when Auditor-General
Kimi Makwe noted[iii] political
interference and infighting in councils results in “a lack of political will to
ensure accountability”. Municipalities are unable to deliver even the most
basic of services … clean water, sanitation and electricity, and far from
building new[iv],
what infrastructure they have isn’t maintained.
The rise in protests have nothing to do
with whites (or pinks, pretty red or shades of brown). People are frustrated
with failure which, says the A-G, is compounded by a lack of appropriate skills
and failure to fill key positions.
There's nothing more uplifting than bright … OMO[v]
In the ten years 2005 – 2015 the proportion
of black South African researchers rose from 26% to 35%. The number of “white
academics decreased by more than 10 percentage points to 49%[vi]”.
That’s good news except
1.
the 49% is drawn from 8.4% of
South Africans[vii],
2.
it is estimated over the next
10 years about 1/3rd of that 49%, the most experienced, will retire,
3.
in the words of Munyaradzi
Nkomo[viii],
“we’ve seen a further increase (since Ramaphosa took over) in people looking to
leave the country … professionals”, and while
4.
vacancies will abound political
and academic leaders should surely assess whether they’ll be filling posts or doing
what we need - employing nation-building dedication and skill?
Shaky start
At school, where foundations should be cemented,
South Africa’s educators determined a 29% fail line. World average expectation of
school-learners is that they achieve around 50%. If that applied to the 2017 matric
results, the pass rate of 75.1% would drop to 33%[ix].
There are nearly one million students at university
in SA, some 700 000 at college and 90 000 at various private institutions[x]
so why in 2016 did the economy grow just 0.3 percent?[xi]
The vast majority of students are black. Of
the 60% at uni who survive the 1st year only 15% will graduate[xii].
And “Black and female students are (seriously)
under-represented in science, engineering and technology [xiii]“…
yet presumably even with tight(er) selection … “the highest failure rates were
in the maths and science programmes (as) students tended to struggle with
“anything with a maths component”[xiv].
Maybe walking out of tests will force the
issue of a certificate, but creating import-substitution industries won’t grow
that way[xv].
White males dominate postgraduate studies[xvi]
but overall more, not whites alone[1],
graduates are taking their STEM[2]
degrees overseas.
This not about racism or why SA is in this position. It is
about today
What are we going to do when those with the
needed skills are gone? Or pushed aside?
Forget about most engineering or
science-required projects … we cannot even manage the most vital of all: “South Africa is a water-scarce country … Major
challenges perceived included a lack of both skills and political will in
government … to deliver water-related services, and a failure to up-scale
existing water re-use technology”[xvii].
Erik S Reinert[xviii],
the scientist who authored the analysis of why poor countries stay poor, again
reminded us that in the developing world even the qualified bus driver should
have a more qualified mentor sitting at the back.
Overseas folk will come temporary to fill
the gap, with danger money conditions, but as the toll-road debacle showed they
can be overly expensive and when the goals aren’t set properly, inefficient. We
can’t even deliver mail[xix].
“In sub-Saharan Africa, per capita GDP
is now less than it was in 1974”[xx].
The elves did not spend a lot of time in serious thought[xxi]
They decided it was enough to control the
thinkers. They thought control would pass for wisdom, knowledge and skill and the
music would play forever.
Mazibuye African Congress with its strict
anti-white membership policy[xxii]
is an interesting pod of elves. Who is to restart the music when there are no
whites to be excluded?
Should we concentrate on building a Rainbow
Nation? Malema is divided.
He told the local Huffingtonpost 2 years
ago, “We cannot imagine South Africa without white people”[xxiii]
but 2 weeks ago he tweeted, “Hahaha, you are going, white man”.
Why’s he important? It is the handful of Malemas
- not the people, not the scientists and academics – who will dictate how hard
we land.
[1] “… white emigrants appear to be outnumbered by growing numbers of black
professionals who have joined the global skills market.” … Department of Home
Affairs quoted by Staff Writer, BusinessTech, 23 May 2018
[iii] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/staff-reporter/local-government-in-sa-is-in-crisis-how-it-can-be-fixed
[vi] https://www.nature.com/news/black-academics-soon-to-outnumber-white-researchers-in-south-africa
[viii] MD Strategies Migration Services South Africa … https://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/news/watch-people-are-leaving-south-african-in-numbers
[ix] https://businesstech.co.za/news/lifestyle/231111/school-pass-marks-in-south-africa-vs-the-rest-of-the-world/
[xii] https://theconversation.com/why-south-africas-universities-are-in-the-grip-of-a-class-struggle-50915
[xiv] https://www.iol.co.za/lifestyle/family/parenting/only-15-of-sa-university-students-graduate-1531809
[xv] https://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/watch-university-of-limpopo-students-walk-out-of-philosophy-test
[xvii] http://www.scielo.org.za/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S1816-79502016000300011
and google south african water security under threat due to inefficiencies to
see many more
[xix] https://mybroadband.co.za/news/government/273931-the-south-african-post-office-tested-100-failure-rate
[xxiii] https://www.huffingtonpost.co.za/2016/11/27/malema-whites-will-get-land-too-and-wont-be-driven
